In summer, a group of pioneers from the city of Brest visited Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The landscapes of this green massif, located 60 kilometers from the city in the watershed of the Western Bug, Neman and Pripyat, are beautiful and picturesque. Fresh air filled with resin and the smell of herbs. Slender trunks of ship pines, fluffy spruces, wide sprawling hornbeams met the guys in all the glory of a clear June day. Watch and admire. But the most interesting was ahead.

The guide led the children along the path, past a cheerful grove of a young pine forest. There, behind a hillock, an impenetrable thicket of primeval forest began: huge firs, wide oaks, transparent ash trees, maple, mountain ash, birch. It seemed that there was no end to the untold wealth of the forest.

The children learned that Belovezhskaya Pushcha is part of the huge forests that occupied the entire space of Europe in prehistoric times. Only here many more species of rare animals and birds have been preserved, which have already disappeared in all other countries. Only here, in the only place in the world, ever since ice age bison, wild primitive forest bulls, live in the wild. You can meet deer here, peep how the moose go to the watering hole.

Beavers also live in the Bialowieza forests. These precious representatives of the fur kingdom disappeared at the beginning of the last century. And now, after the war, they were brought here "to settle", and they freely live on neighboring reservoirs. And on autumn nights, as the moon rises, they build their amazing houses and dams. Nursery workers later, when the group returned from the forest, said that many amateur tourists went to the river for the night to watch how they cleaned and washed on the shore, before starting work, these animal miracle architects.

In the Bialowieza forests martens, otters, ermines, squirrels, foxes live freely. Fat and lazy badgers make deep holes between the roots of trees.

And how many birds are here! Black grouse, hazel grouse, partridge, snipe; in swamps and rivers - wild ducks, cranes, storks, sandpipers. Only rarely does anyone manage to see the pride of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha - the black stork. Already very far, in the most impenetrable wilderness, he arranges his nest.

The guys also examined special feeders built in different places of the forest thicket. Many wondered: why are they all empty? It turns out that huntsmen put food in them only in winter, when it is difficult for the hoofed inhabitants of the forest to get their own food. And in the feeders they find fresh hay, oats, vegetables and ... even salt. Deer, elk, roe deer, wild pigs and bison willingly use the help of people in the absence of food and endure the winter months more easily.

Tired, hungry, but full of rich impressions, the guys returned from the forest. The school published a special wall newspaper dedicated to this campaign, and the "nerds" made a very good herbarium. It was decided to definitely arrange such a trip in the winter, on skis. Maybe you will be able to peep how the animals feed at the feeders.

60 km from the city of Brest, on the border with the Republic of Poland, there is an amazing natural monument, which many call one of the wonders of the world of our continent. Covered with legends Belovezhskaya Pushcha is the last great forest of Europe. The same primeval thickets that covered vast territories hundreds and thousands of years ago have survived to this day. In 1992, Belovezhskaya Pushcha was included in the list world heritage humanity - UNESCO. The total area of ​​the forest within its historical boundaries is about 130,000 hectares, of which about 57,000 hectares are in Poland. The area of ​​the National Park is 152,962 hectares.

In the protected forests of this park, 900 species of plants grow and 250 species of animals and birds live, including rare species.

Story Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

Belovezhskaya Pushcha is one of the most important sights of Belarus. These are the remains of a primeval forest that once stretched from Baltic Sea to the Bug River and from the Oder to the Dnieper. Belovezhskaya Pushcha is located in the Brest region, one of the four national parks Belarus and is the most big forest in central Europe. The reserve is located 340 km southwest of Minsk. The administrative center of the park is located in the village of Kamenyuki, Kamenetsky district, 60 km from Brest. 20 km from Belovezhskaya Pushcha is the town of Kamenets, on the territory of which stands Belaya Vezha - a watchtower built in the 13th century. It is believed that this monument gave its name to Pushcha.

Belovezhskaya Pushcha today

Currently national park"Belovezhskaya Pushcha" is one of the most famous places in Belarus.

900 species of plants grow in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, including rare and endangered ones. The park is famous for its ancient nominal oaks, which are over 500 years old. Among the ancient trees:

• ash trees
• pines

In the National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" there are 59 species of mammals, including:

• bison (the largest population in Europe)

• otter
• tarpan (wild European horse)

The reserve is home to 227 species of birds, including:

• lesser and greater spotted eagles crane
• woodpecker
• owl

about the animal and flora Belovezhskaya Pushcha tells the Museum of Nature, located in the park. Bison, bears, deer and other inhabitants of the forest can be seen in the enclosures.

How to get to Belovezhskaya Pushcha

The safer and more comfortable life becomes, the greater the gap between natural environment habitation and the world of man, the stronger it pulls at least for a while to return to the bosom of nature and feel like a particle of it. Hunting - a primitive duel between an animal and a hunter - long ago at the dawn of time, allowed a person to survive and rise to a new level of development. Later, in the Middle Ages, hunting became the privilege of the elite, the lot of aristocrats and kings. In almost every ancient European castle, you can see a hall richly decorated with hunting trophies. Today, hunting and fishing are no longer activities that directly affect human survival. Now it's just entertainment for real men, allowing a person of the mobile computer world to escape from the urban jungle and hear the breath of nature. Returning to civilization, the hunter takes away the primal thrill of excitement and victory.

Thousands of hunters from Europe go on an exciting African safari, dream of hunting in the vast expanses of Siberia. But to enjoy a real hunt, you don't have to go too far. In the very center of Europe, there is a country where impassable jungles of forests have miraculously survived, in which wild animals and birds live freely.

Belarus has been famous for its hunting since the Middle Ages. Grand dukes of Lithuania, kings of the Commonwealth, and later Russian emperors arranged magnificent hunts in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where for a long time there was a ban on logging and restrictions on shooting bison. The fame of hunting in this one of the oldest European reserves spread throughout Europe. And today hunting in Belarus still attracts hunters from all over the world.

Belarus has excellent conditions for those who wish to try their luck on hunting or fishing. More than 20 species of game animals and about 30 species of birds live in the hunting grounds, which occupy about 18 million hectares. Here you can prepare hunts for every taste: trophy, collective, ambush, waterfowl and swamp game, driven. Highly efficient and entertaining hunting is ensured by both highly qualified rangers and modern engineering arrangement of hunting grounds, including stationary and temporary towers for trophy hunting.

In the hunting farms of Belarus, it is also possible to organize sports, amateur and underwater fishing.

You can also go hunting and fishing in the forest hunting farms of the national parks "Belovezhskaya Pushcha", "Braslav Lakes", "Narochansky" and "Pripyatsky". The Pripyatsky National Park is located in the south of Belarus, in the center of the vast Polesskaya lowland. This is an amazing land of forests and swamps, riddled with numerous rivers and streams, slowly carrying their waters to the main waterway of the region - the Pripyat River. About 37 species of fish live in the waters of Pripyat. Pike, carp, crucian carp, pike perch, bream, catfish, perch, sterlet are found here. in the lakes national park"Braslav Lakes" is inhabited by 28 species of fish, among which eel is considered a special delicacy.

Lovers of spearfishing will appreciate the purity and transparency of the lakes.

The sounds of nature, inaudible in cities, will give peace of mind to the city dweller, exhausted by stress. The crunch of a dry branch underfoot, the warning cry of a bird, the splash of a fish in the crystal clean water... All the attention of the angler is riveted to the float of the fishing rod, and the city worries cease to seem so important. A few hours spent on the shore of a lake or river is a wonderful meditation.

And how many sincere and physical strength, patience, attentiveness and dexterity are required for the hunter to track down and overtake the coveted prey! The chilly silence of the morning forest, the champing marshes, the gray veil of fog, unexpected rain, the piercing ray of the sun breaking through the clouds - all this was exactly the same a thousand years ago.

But primitive hunting and fishing is no more - great importance for a modern, civilized hunter has the presence necessary conditions for hunting. It can be said with good reason that Belarus has all the conditions for successful hunting and fishing, as well as for a decent reception. foreign tourists. Tired after wandering through the forest or swamp, you can return to a cozy hunting lodge, recuperate, take a steam bath and dine on hot soup prepared from your own catch ... And tomorrow new adventures, new victories and new trophies await you.

Belovezhskaya Pushcha is not only tens of kilometers of protected forest, majestic bison and the legendary Viskuli, where the death sentence of the USSR was signed. It's also people. There are few native Pushcha people left in these parts. The forest villages are empty. They come to life only in the summer, when summer residents come to their parents' houses. The names of Pushcha villages, by the way, are remarkable: Gluboky Ugol, Podbelskie Ogorodniki, Spruce Grud, Pashutskaya Buda. In Glubokoye Ugl, for example, only one resident remained - 82-year-old Maria Panko. For 20 years, my grandmother has been living alone in the middle of a huge forest. Correspondent "R" visited Maria Andreevna and heard from her many entertaining stories.

The village of Deep Angle got its name from the fact that it is not easy to get here.

forest hermit

The village of Deep Angle got its name from the fact that it is not easy to get here. Once it was necessary to overcome kilometers of forest thickets. Now a good road leads to the village, and the main difficulty is a special pass. It must be taken care of in advance. It is definitely impossible to enter the territory of the Pushcha without a document.

From the checkpoint to the village about seven kilometers. Around - quiet winter forest. With my guide Nikolai Panko we make a stop, make our way to the swamp. Within a few days, the snow was knee-deep.

This is the kind of domina built by beavers, - Nikolai points to a snow-white hill. - About five meters long and one and a half meters high. Beavers look after this swamp, build their own hydraulic structures so that it doesn't dry out. And that has never happened in my memory.

“So I’ll sit down by the window and look, admire. Either the deer will come up to the fence, or the wild boars will come.”

Attractions in Pushcha are literally at every step. Not far from the swamp is a huge 400-year-old oak tree. After a kilometer we meet a herd of deer. Approximately 30 individuals. They, having heard the sound of the engine, alerted. Just in case, we ran a little further away. They are watching.

Nikolai Panko is one of the three sons of Maria Andreevna. Lives in the "capital" of Belovezhskaya Pushcha - in Kamenyuki. She visits her mother several times a week. brings necessary products, carries firewood, cleans the paths from snow. In general, it helps.

Nice house on the outskirts of the village. We've arrived. Maria Andreevna is glad to see guests. Offers treats: sauerkraut, lard, pie, tea with forest herbs. We sit down at the table. Outside the window, waiting for spring, Belovezhskaya Pushcha sleeps.

So I sit by the window and look, admire. Either the deer will come up to the fence, or the wild boars will come. In summer, wild goats love to jump over the fence and look for treats under the apple tree. But most of all I like to listen to birds. I’ll sit on a bench, and they try, sing in every way. Such a miracle!

All life in the forest

Maria Panko was born in a nearby village. At the age of 20 she got married, moved to her husband in Deep Corner. Since then he has been living here. Although the children have been calling to her for a long time, she does not want to leave her native walls: “It is better in your own house. I'm used to it here, I've lived my life in this forest and I don't want to go anywhere. I will stay as long as my health allows.

But the pain is getting worse and worse. Brings vision, each step is given with difficulty. Grandma is not discouraged. He heats the stove, cooks food, looks after a simple household: a cat, a dog, two chickens and a rooster also need to be fed. So that mom has something to do, son Nikolai breaks several small beds every year. Previously, Maria Andreevna and her husband kept cows, pigs, and sheep. And vegetable gardens and potato plantations occupied about one and a half hectares. They worked from dawn to dusk.

Electricity appeared in Glubokoye Ugol about ten years ago, - my grandmother recalls. - Previously, they used a torch, then - kerosene lamps. Nothing, somehow lived. Gathered in the evenings, weaving, knitting. The men were playing cards. They sang songs until the night! Then solar panels were installed on the roof. In winter, there is little sense from them, but in summer there was enough energy for a couple of hours of TV and even a small refrigerator. And now - beauty! There is light, the mobile shop comes twice a week. But there is no one left in the village...

Only memories remain. No, no, yes, and I will remember my childhood, which fell on the military hard times. Seven-year-old Manechka was carrying food Soviet soldiers who escaped from captivity and found shelter under the shadow of an ancient forest. And soon from their native places had to leave. The Germans were afraid of the partisans, and therefore all the inhabitants of Belovezhskaya Pushcha were ordered to leave their homes. Having collected simple belongings, Maria's family went to Zhabinka. Their house, as well as the houses of fellow villagers, the occupation authorities ordered to burn ...

We returned as soon as the war was over. How else? My fathers were born in the forest, grandfathers. We are here, and our place is in this forest. built new house life gradually returned to normal. They ran a household, went 22 kilometers to the market in Kamenets to sell butter, cottage cheese, eggs. So they lived...

Nikolai PANKO lives in the capital of Belovezhskaya Pushcha - Kamenyuki. Mom visits several times a week, helps.

“During the war years, my father got it,” Nikolai enters into a conversation. - He was then 14 years old. They drove him to work in Germany, he fled and ended up in a concentration camp. He spoke reluctantly about that period of his life. Everyone has seen and suffered. After his release, he fought in Soviet army. In 1945 he returned to his native village, spent his whole life in Pushcha. Didn't want to go anywhere.

Bison and bicycle

It is easy to understand him. Despite the inconveniences of everyday life, the places here are amazing. Right behind the fence is a sea of ​​mushrooms and berries. To meet a bison or a deer in the yard is a common thing. Maria Andreevna recalls how, several years ago, the Tsar of the Forest frightened her in earnest:

In the evening someone knocked on the door. One, another. I thought, what a drunkard got lost, I tell him: “Well, stand under this door! I won't open it." I hear him start rubbing against the wall. I went to the window, and there - a huge muzzle of a bison! Looks straight at me. Well, I think, now the frame will be exposed. She grabbed what came to hand, began to knock, scream. Moved a little further away, became. Then I took the newspapers, twisted the torch and went out onto the porch. Bison reluctantly, but still reached into the thicket.

The inhabitants of the Pushcha give Grandma a lot of trouble. Wild boars now and then dig up the ground near the fence, or they can even tear out the gate. Wild goats have trodden a path to the clone, where you can always feast on hay. But the main problem is kites. It is worth releasing chickens - birds of prey are right there. They took away more than one chicken. Grandmother Manya is very proud of her rooster, which once got into a fight with a kite and successfully withstood the defense until the hostess came to the rescue with a stick. Now the place for walking domestic animals is covered with a net. Away from sin.

Maria Andreevna says that in her memory, animals have not attacked people. The inhabitants of Pushcha know well how to behave in the forest so as not to get into trouble:

I think the most scary beast- human. When you meet a wild boar, willy-nilly, your heart will go to your heels. But they try to avoid people, not to be seen. And if we already met, it’s better to quietly and peacefully disperse. It is not worth showing increased attention to wild boars. Especially in the spring, when the females have piglets.

Maria Andreevna had a lot of unexpected meetings. It was far from always possible to part ways with the inhabitants of the forest, like ships in the sea. Grandmother pours herself some tea, smiles at something, recalls:

Went once for acorns for pigs. I put the bike near the pine tree, I collect acorns in a bucket. I go up to the bike, and right next to it there are three bison! Huge, smaller and very small. I put the buckets on the ground, I stand and look at the tree I can climb on. Sideways, she approached the spruce, climbed up. But the teeth don't go away. They stand and look. It's interesting to them. I sat for a long time. When I got down, I was no longer up to the acorns. I went out onto the road - again I saw bison, peacefully lying on the side of the road. There were only five or six of them. I walked by, and they didn’t even move their ears.

Or here is a case: we went with our niece into the forest, and a wild boar jumped out from under the tree. Everyone was frightened: both the beast and the mushroom pickers. Not understanding the road, the boar rushed to run away. He was in such a hurry that he knocked down Maria Andreevna's niece, and she ended up on the back of the animal. Drove a few meters, fell. Now, remembering this story, my grandmother smiles, but then it was not a laughing matter. Scared half to death.

Maria Andreevna looks out the window again, but there is no one there. Only silent snowy forest. Grandma is looking forward to spring. When the birds fly again, they will enliven the surroundings with their polyphony. For the only inhabitant of the Deep Corner, this music is the best.

There are amazing places on earth. They are not like anything else and therefore cause admiration in people. it highest mountains, the deepest earthly depressions, the largest waterfalls. Many more of the most unusual places on our planet are known to people. I want to tell you about one of them.
This is an extraordinarily tall old forest, so tall that it reaches to the very clouds! grow here giant trees: pine, spruce, birch, oak, ash, linden. This forest is located not just anywhere, but in the very center of Europe. His name is Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
One day, something incredible happened in the ancient forest. Big black clouds that came here with Atlantic Ocean, in the most literal sense, caught on the tops of the trees and could not come off. They are stuck above the ancient forest!
What happened after that?
All life in the forest stopped. Animals and birds now did not understand when the morning came and when it was night. The birds stopped waking up at dawn and singing their morning songs. Yes, and the inhabitants of Belovezhskaya Pushcha have a mess with sleep. The regime of day and night was completely broken.
What to do? And then one of the smartest Magpies announced that they needed to fly to the nearest city to people and ask someone for an alarm clock. The animals and birds agreed and let Soroka go to the city. But when Belobok flew up to high-rise buildings on the outskirts of the city, she could not agree with anyone. Her words were like a rattle, so unintelligible and loud that no one understood anything. It can be seen that the bird was very tired from the flight and was very agitated. Magpie was about to fly back when her curious and very keen eyes noticed something shiny on the balcony of the second floor. These were wrist watch with an alarm clock. A boy of six years old forgot them there when he played with them. Apparently, dad gave the old watch to his son, because he had a cell phone in his pocket. And in the phone, everyone knows this, there is a clock and an alarm clock.
The magpie, although she had never stolen anything from anyone before, this time grabbed the watch in her beak and carried it into the forest. The distracted boy did not even understand where he left his father's watch, and soon completely forgot about them.
Everyone in the forest was saved. Now in Belovezhskaya Pushcha the alarm clock rang in the morning. The birds were the first to hear his call, wake up and begin to sing morning songs. Their voices carried throughout the vast forest and woke up its inhabitants.
Gradually, everyone got used to living "by the clock" - waking up early in the morning, feeding the kids, getting food, and going back to bed in the evening. But, nevertheless, to live in complete darkness, without sunlight, is very inconvenient. If you are not careful, then in the dark you can stumble on something and injure a paw or a porch.
And then grown up over the summer, strengthened chicks forest birds gathered in a large flock and flew to disperse the black clouds hanging over the forest. They flew high up and with their beaks unhooked the clouds from the tops of the trees. That's how brave and smart the young chicks turned out to be! These little daredevils helped their parents, adult birds, and all the inhabitants of Belovezhskaya Pushcha free themselves from the darkness! Finally, it was already autumn, the huge centuries-old forest came to life for real. He became bright and festive!
Before flying south migratory birds staged a big concert, as they say, "by request". Any songbird - be it a thrush, a nightingale, a warbler or a chaffinch, a waxwing or a linnet sang its most beautiful song, which was liked by all the inhabitants of the forest and even by trees and flowers.
And when the holiday ended, everyone decided that now they no longer need an alarm clock. And they asked Magpie to take the clock back to the city in order to return it to its original place. After all, birds are not thieves, they only temporarily borrowed their invention from people. Of course, Magpie immediately agreed and carried the watch to the city. She placed them on the same balcony from which she had taken them.
The boy went out onto the balcony, saw the clock and began to study it again. The boy already knew all the numbers, understood how the hands on the dial were spinning, and could even tell what time it was. And the clock showed 17 (seventeen) hours and 30 (thirty) minutes.
"Now my cartoon will begin!" - the boy remembered and ran to ask his grandmother to let him turn on the TV.

This fairy tale is in Belarusian http://domarenok-t.narod.ru/stories/998.html

P.s. Friends! Read my site with fairy tales and stories in Russian and Belarusian languages
http://domarenok-t.narod.ru